A talk given to Skeptics in the Pub, at The Maypole, Cambridge, 28
June, 2016
It’s not usual for a
speaker to say immediately what their approach is. In most talks, the audience
members are left to decide for themselves: is this person a Neo–Darwinist, a
proponent of Intelligent Design, a Buddhist; or one of those dying breeds – a
Marxist or a worshipper of the works of Freud.
Well, for several
decades I’ve been rebelling in a quiet way at having to call myself anything.
It is true that I am what might be called a natural atheist, having never for a
second believed in the existence of God. And if I wanted an intellectual
underpinning for my disbelief, then I find this in the words of Karl Jasper,
“If God spoke in the world, his voice would be irresistible.” Yet, if I call
myself an atheist, it’s a bit of a conversation–stopper. I mean, why stop
there? Why not call myself a nihilist, and embrace the Great Nothing? Because it is impossible to maintain such a
stance, to resolutely deny any joy that happens my way, and thereby stop myself
from becoming an existential Alf Garnett. So it is that I go along with the
words of the British Humanist Association, and ‘celebrate the one life that I have’
– insofar as circumstances allow. However, I prefer to call myself – without
the least pretension – a freethinker: open to all ideas, while being rigidly
bound to none (except such things as there never being an excuse for the abuse
of other people, animals, or indeed the natural environment).
The principle word in my
title is lying, but this does not
solely relate to the telling of outright lies. There are arguments that are
subtle and smooth, but still characterised by deliberation, and that are intended
to wrong–foot opponents. This might take the form of deliberate suppression of
facts and figures that go against your argument – that is, against your
interests. Or what I think is called the single instance induction fallacy may
be introduced: as in, “My granny smoked twenty cigarettes a day, and lived to
ninety.” The implication being that smoking is not harmful to health. However,
it has to be allowed that many questions are simply too complex to admit of
reasonable public or private debate. And, as we have seen with the EU
referendum, this leads to shouting matches, and the attempt to hammer home
supposed truths as if sheer force would make them right (and this, we may say,
is probably the substance of most domestic arguments: they are not reasoned
arguments, they are rows).
Dissimulation too, has
speedy limits. Like a certain lord, not unfamiliar with spending time at Her
Majesty’s pleasure, you may pretend that you have been to a certain university.
But supposing you are asked what you studied, when you were at this university,
which college you belonged to, and who your principal lecturer was? You may
well have mugged up a bit on this, but it will be extremely embarrassing if –
at a party – you meet someone who was at this university during the same years
as you purportedly were. Once start down this path, and you will become ever
deeper mired by the fantasy you have invented.
At this point I’d like
to bring in some highly pertinent observations from literary criticism –
specifically those set out with compelling clarity in Frank Kermode’s The Genesis of Secrecy: On the
Interpretation of Narrative. According to Kermode a great deal of our
reading is aimed not at discovering a range of meanings, but in reinforcing the
truth as we see it. So, if we are a Marxist, a Freudian, a Christian, an
atheist, a Buddhist, a Seventh Day Adventist, or whatever, we will seek to have
our beliefs reinforced, and react angrily if they are not. So it is that we read
for the truth as we see it. As for the idea of
“the single sense, the truth.” There is no such thing, and it would be
extremely odd if there were; odder still that it had eluded us over all these
centuries. It is impossible to contemplate seriously any kind of apprehensible
entity that we could label “The Truth”. It is the crock of gold at the end of
the rainbow. I do not see that this should worry us. The freer our minds are
when reading, the better. Postmodernism has anyway already loosened all the moorings,
and I do not see why we cannot read in a lighter frame of mind. We carry so
much cramping mental baggage about, that it is wonderful when we allow
ourselves to jettison any of it! Let us have an end to stultifying personal
predilections; to unintelligent rubbishing of authors that we don’t happen to
enjoy; and even of trying — too hard, at least — to get others to read our own
favourites. Every
good writer will give you enriching insights, but I would not recommend
discipleship – else your life will be warped, and you will find yourself fairly
constantly on the defensive as you try to quell your doubts. In fact there is a
danger that the laces of your shoes will become tied to each other in a knot
worthy of the writings of the medieval schoolmen.
But why go on with this
dirty work? We could be free, and should train ourselves to be pleased when we
find that we’ve got something wrong, and go home with a mind that is a little
more finely tuned than it was before. Daniel Dennett even goes so far as to say
that we “should seek out opportunities to make grand mistakes, just so we can
then recover from them.” It is admittedly painful to find that we’ve been
living with a particular illusion for years, or even decades. And it would be
unkind – if not cruel – to go round deliberately disillusioning people (and I
am anyway completely against proselytising). But this is not at all what I have
in mind. Rather, we have, I think, to habituate ourselves to taking on views
which – while they may be painful in the short run – will be beneficial in the
long run.
I will conclude with
these wise words from Jane Austen’s Emma:
“Seldom, very seldom,
does complete truth belong to any human disclosure; seldom can it happen that
something is not a little disguised, or a little mistaken . . .”
A badge for all our
lapels, wouldn’t you say?
__________________
Wall art illustration from: 20+
Powerful Street Art Pieces That Tell The Uncomfortable Truth
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